Basu's Bali Trip 2008

Hi Family,

My Bali Journal is finally complete.  Here is my Bali Journal.  Hope you enjoy the journal.

The Story Begins in Bintan

The story begins in Bintan, Indonesia in 2005, during our third and final time there.  Those of you reading this journal and not familiar with my Bintan adventure, here is the link to my Bintan BLOG: http://omnikron.typepad.com/bintan/

 

 

We were in Bintan in our Villa for 10 days.  During one of those ten days I invited the general Manager of the golf course (Mr. Rully) and the VP of Operations of the resort, Mildred Stephens, for dinner.  I can assume it was a gesture they rarely receive and really appreciated, and we bonded.  It was an investment on my part in relationship building and expression of our appreciation given how special they both personally as well their staff made us feel during all our stays at Bintan.

 

Fast forward to beginning of this year.  I get a message from Mildred, she is now running a Westin in Shanghai, and wanted me to join her friends group of her Facebook.  I am not part of the Facebook demographics.  I did not even have a Facebook profile.  So I created a Facebook profile and joined her friends group.

 

About a month before I left for my trip to India I contacted Mildred (expecting that she would have contact in the hospitality industry) wanting to know if she knew anyone in Bali that I may be able to contact if I needed any assistance in hotel, car rental etc. She put me in touch with the General Manager of one of the hotels in Bali.  Fast forward, I’m in Calcutta a few days before I return to Singapore.  My original plan was for Cedric, my friend from Singapore,  and I to go to China, possibly Shenzhen to play golf for a few days before returning to LA.  Even though I wanted to go to China for golf, right from the beginning I had a premonition that we may not be able to pull off the China trip.  So I had Bali in my mind as a back up plan.  As it turned out, at the last minute,  Cedric was having pulling all the pieces together for the trip and he ended up getting sick a couple of days before my arrival back to Singapore from Kolkata.  As a result my China trip looked vey shaky.  While I was still in Kolkata, about four or five days before my return to Singapore, one day I was looking at Mildred’s Facebook friend’s list, and I recognized a name – it’s one of the front desk managers at the Bintan Golf Club, her name is Yuli Sandra.  Somewhat unusual (Christian) name in predominantly Muslim Indonesia.  That’s why I remembered her name.  I wanted to say hello to her.  So I sent her a message to say hello and asking if she remembered me.  She had immediately responded saying of course she remembered me and also told me in that first e-mail that she had since left Bintan and now was working for a luxury villa rental company in Bali.  If I want to visit Bali I should contact her and she would be happy to help me anyway she can.  I thought my goodness what a coincidence.  She told me one more thing in that initial e-mail if I remembered “Mah-day”  the asst manger at he golf club he is now in Bali.  I remembered “Mah-day” very well.  The name is actually spelled “Made”, however it is pronounced “Mah-day”.  I have used the phonetic spelling “Mah-day” in this journal.  Not only did “Mah-day” and I play golf together regularly while I vacationed in Bintan, we even e-mailed each other for a while after I came back to LA.  However, after he left Bintan, we lost touch with each other.  So if I go to Bali, it would be great to reconnect with my golfing buddy “Mah-day”

 

I immediately responded to her letting her know that I was indeed planning a trip to Bali and would appreciate any help she can help me in organizing my trip including hotel, car rental, driver etc.  I also told her that I’d like her to put me in touch with “Mah-day”, I’d very much like to reconnect with “Mah-day”. So this is the complete background of Yuli and “Mah-day”.

The Bali trip was great!

 My Host “Mah-day” was most gracious and hospitable.  Before I arrived I had e-mailed to Mah-day that I needed for him to get me a car, a driver, and a hotel reservation.  He responded that don’t worry about car rental and driver, I’ll drive you around when you are here.  I was both pleased and at the same time concerned.  I did not know to what extent he would be able to drive me around.  I was expecting to have a driver available as long as I needed him so that I will have total flexibility.  As it turned out my concern was unfounded.  He had taken the all five days off from work while I was there to drive me around and explore Bali.  He showed up every day whenever I wanted to start the day typically around 7:30 – 8:00 AM and some days we did not get back to the hotel until 11:00 PM and he could not wait to get back next morning, the same routine.  Hospitality of such degree is not part of Western culture and tradition.  Had it not been for our own tradition of similar hospitality it would have been very hard for me graciously accept and appreciate his hospitality without making him feel that I am feeling obligated.  I felt that the friendship and the bond that was created during our days in Bintan is what resulted in his heart to do want to do this for me and I wanted to make sure through my own conduct that I was  a gracious recipient of his kindness, generosity and hospitality.  I know fully well some day in the future I’ll have the opportunity of reciprocating.  Mah-day enjoyed spending the time with me as I did with him.  It was like two old friends getting back together after a long time and time passed too fast.  If we knew it was over time to leave Bali.

 

I really enjoyed the whole Bali experience and expect to be back there in the future for longer stay.  It just so happens, I just recently read Liz Gilbert’s best seller, “Eat, Pray, Love”.  Where she writes about her four month stay in Bali in exquisite details – talking about Bali’s culture and history.  As a result I was better prepared to experience Bali than I had been to many other places.  I told Mah-day that I have four interests that I want to explore in Bali: play golf, explore the resorts in Bali, explore the beaches and natural beauty of Bali, explore for some accommodation for future longer stay in Bali, and buy wood carvings of Bali.

Where is Bali?

The island of Bali is part of the Republic of Indonesia and is located 8 to 9 degrees south of the equator between Java in the West and Lombok and the rest of the Lesser Sunda Islands (Sumbawa, Flores, Sumba and Timor) in the East. Flying time to Singapore is 2.5 hours.

GEOGRAPHY:

The island of Bali has an area of only 5,632 square kilometers (2,175 square miles) and measures just 55 miles (90 kilometers) along the north-south axis and less than about 90 miles (140 kilometers) from East to West.

Arriving in Bali

My arrival in Bali was very inauspicious.  The first 30 minutes after arriving in Bali did not go very well.  First in the immigration after I paid $10.00 fee for visa or arrival, the immigration officer looked at my passport and asked me to follow him to a room in the back.  Another immigration officer, a relatively young guy, sat down in front of me and explained that they have problem with my passport – my passport does not have any page left for them to put on the visa on arrival sticker.  And after some time he explained that the problem can be solved by paying a $50.00 fee to add an extra page to my passport.  He wanted to know what I would like to do; like I had some choice.  So I forked up three $20 bills, I did not have the exact change.  In a matter of minutes he came back with a page added to my passport and the visa pasted on it and he did not bother to give me the $10 change.  I was relieved to be done with the shake down and was anxious to move on a and forgot to ask my change.  Any way, corruption, is alive and well in Indonesia.  After I got my luggage and got through the customs Mah-day recognized me and waved.  He was concerned that he may not recognize me and I may not recognize him so he spent some time going to the Omnikron website and looking at my picture there to refresh his memory of what I looked like.  I was relieved to see Mah-day after the shake down and extortion by Indonesian Immigration.  As we were going towards the car my forehead bumped into one of the poster boxes hung too low advertizing something or other.  It has a pretty hard bump and I was afraid that I may have cut open skin on my right side of the forehead.  But fortunately I did not see any blood.  There was restaurant right there.  We were able to get a small bag of ice that I used to ice the bump for the next hour and because of the timely icing the bump that swelled up a pretty big went down and did not cause me much of problem during my stay in Bali.  And now that my Bali trip is complete and I am safely back home in California, I had no other unpleasant experience in Bali.

Golfing

I need not spend too much effort explaining this interest, this is a obvious interest for me.  Bali has five golf courses.  I wanted to play in a couple of the nicer courses and more importantly I was looking forward to playing golf with Mah-day.  As such playing golf itself was somewhat minor interest, since I can play golf anywhere; it was the idea of playing with Mah-day after such a long time in some of the nicest courses in Bali was this interest was all about.  After I got to Bali I came to realize that my time is very limited 3 ½ days, and I had a rather ambitious plan.  If I wanted to achieve my goal, something had to be scaled back.  I chose to scale back golf.  So I played only one round of golf in Nirwana Golf Club, Bali.  This is considered the best golf course in Bali.  Mah-day had told me that he used to be the operations manager at Nirwana before he went to work at Bintan.  Not until I got to the club house did I realize that how popular he is still with the staff at the club.  We were treated like celebrities including 50% off the green fee.  And the celebrity treatment continued all through the round of golf.  The course being rated as the best golf course in Bali was well earned.  It is a beautifully manicured and cared for golf course.  A fairly difficult course especially the greens were fast and was hard to read.  Mah-day did not do that much better than me.  In all fairness he had not played for almost nine months.  I started out great, I had a 12 foot birdie putt on the first hole, but ended up three-putting with a bogie.  Of course in my level Bogie is a good score but would have been great to start with a birdie or  at least a par.  In the back 9, Mah-day’s buddy and the teaching pro Mandy joined us.  Mandy explained to me that Mah-day and he come from the same village and he has always looked up to Mah-day as his big brother.  Mandy gave me a few swing tips during the game.  Unfortunately my back started bothering me after hole 13 and got progressively worse and I had to stop playing at hole 15.  It was a shame to have to stop.  But I got out of it how great it can be playing golf at Nirwana with all the Mah-day connections to be mined in the future.

Exploring Bali

Indonesia has the second largest Muslim population in the world (it used to have the largest Muslim population in the world, until India took over recently), however the island of Bali is 90% Hindu.  The religion has a lot to do with the mild mannered accepting nature of the Balinese.  The people of Bali reminded me a lot of people of Thailand.  In my experience Thai are the most accepting (of foreigners) people in the world.  While I was in Thailand I never felt that I did not belong there.  I think the Buddhist religion of Thailand has a lot to do with their accepting nature.  Bali people come very close to the Thai people in making foreigners feel at home.  This is the reason why both Thailand as well as Bali are such popular tourists destinations, for Australians and Europeans.  In addition, it is very common today for Australians and Europeans to own a second vacation home in Bali.  If these foreigners did not feel at home in Bali, I’m sure that they would not be owning homes in Bali in such large numbers.  I had the opportunity to see a number of these homes, and there are magnificent villas exquisitely architected and maintained.  More about these Villas later.

 

I wanted to get a sense of the island’s tourist attractions such as the major resorts, the beaches and the more popular (from the tourists point of view)  parts of the island.  I wanted to check out as many of the nicest resorts in the island as I could.  In the process I visited Four Seasons, Bali Grand Hyatt, and Bali Hyatt, and Le Meridien.  They were all spectacularly beautiful resorts.  I had breakfast in the Four Seasons and lunch in Bali Hyatt.  I had a little more time to explore these two resorts.  I had a cursory walk through of Grand Hyatt and Le Meridien.  As you would expect of the four I’d say Four Seasons and Grand Hyatt are clearly the two leading resorts however the other two were great resorts as well.  One thing that I liked in all of these hotels especially Four Seasons and Grand Hyatt, how well the architecture of these resorts blended within the surrounding of Bali.  Unfortunately I just did not have enough time to spend that much time ion each of the resorts.  My own hotel was in Sanur – Grand Bali Beach hotel.  It is a large hotel with a great beach.  However it is one of the older hotels and in my scale of 1 to 10, 10 being Four Seasons, I’d give it a 5.5.  The golf course Mah-day manages is attached to this hotel.  That’s why he booked me in this hotel.  He did get a great price – 50% off at $60.00/night.  I was not sure initially I would have opted for this hotel, even at the low price.  However at the end of the trip I decided it was actually a very good value, simply because I spent so little time in the hotel that spending $300/night at a Hyatt or Grand Hyatt might not have been the best value for the money if I was going to out and about from 7:00 am till 11:00 pm.

 

Most of the population of Bali is located near the southern part of the island, that’s where most of the resorts are located as well.   So most of my exploration was in that general area.  We visited this beach called Kuta beach, in the area of Bali called Kuta.  This is like Waikiki of Bali.  I’m one of very few people to admit that I enjoyed Waikiki when we vacationed there in the late 80’s.  The first time we went to Kuta beach after getting into and out of the water I was sitting with Mah-day just enjoying the moment, as I get surrounded by 5 women who gradually claimed all four limbs and my head and shoulder and proceeded to do pedicure, scrubbing my hands off calluses and dead skin and head and shoulder massage. Mah-day took a picture of me surrounded by these old women.  The water itself in the Kuta beach was not very nice there were a bunch dead fish floating around.  I am sure there better beaches in Bali than Kuta.  The beach itself was nice,  wide, clean sand and not that crowded.  A lot of Australian both young boys and girls hanging out.  Kuta is definitely is the place for the young Europeans and Australians to hang out.  The Bali bombing took place in one of the night clubs in Kuta.  Mah-day showed me the place where the night club used to be now it a monument in memory of the people killed in the bombing.

The Food

I have never been that keen on South East Asian cuisine.  That include, Thai, Malay, Singapore and Indonesia.  I have a feeling when I go to China I would not like real Chinese food either.  Something about the unique way they combine their spices that does not agree with me.  As a result when I am in this part of the world I have to be really careful not to hurt the feelings of my hosts that their cuisine does not agree with me.  I try my best to direct them to a restaurant where I know the cuisine would agree with me – and that would be either popular American cuisine or Indian.  When I am in Singapore the eatery of my choice is this Indian restaurant called Maharajah North Indian Restaurant, right by the hotel of my choice Holiday Inn Parkview.  Typically I would have at least one meal – either the lunch or dinner there.  However when I’d go out with Cedric, Lisa or their friends they would take me to some of the newer and popular restaurants in town.  I always enjoy those outings.  Typically they are overlooking either the ocean or the bay or some body of water, outdoor location.  All the elements of ambience I enjoy.  The food is always is a hit and miss proposition.  After I came back from Bali, I was in Singapore for one day before I left for home.  That evening Cedric wanted to take me to experience something very special treat – Lobster porridge.  I was very skeptical.  But could not express that to Cedric.  So I went along.  WE met Charlie one of Cedric’s good friends that I had gotten to know and like.  Charlie and I have played golf a number of times over the years.  I was glad to meet Charlie.  We had a great time in this golf club bar until it was time to go down to the restaurant to experience Lobster Porridge.  I asked Cedric what’s lobster porridge, and from the description I figured I have to bring out my best diplomatic skill to get through this dining experience without hurting Cedric’s feelings.  Without going into the details I did manage make through the evening without partaking the lobster porridge and hopefully without offending and hurting Cedric’s feelings.  Cedric has been to my place twice, has stayed with me and has experienced both Indian food at my home as well as a number of restaurants when he has visited me but I have not been able to train him fully about my likes and dislikes in food.

 

Food in Bali was no different from food in Singapore; similar challenge.  However, I was able to easily navigate through the challenge with Mah-day.  My sense was that Mah-day does not eat out as much as a result did not have many restaurants that he felt is a must for me to experience.  As a result I was able to navigate to the “Right” kind of restaurants without too much trouble.  One restaurant I really enjoyed was right at the heart of the Kuta Beach area called Ocean Beach Club.  The menu was decidedly popular American Cuisine, almost like a Cheesecake Factory type menu.  After I had a my pedicure and manicure done by the five women on Kuta Beach, we decided to get a bite to eat at the Ocean Beach Club.  The food was very good – I had popcorn shrimp and French fries.  It was well done.  As good as any restaurant I would eat something similar in LA.  It has been my experience in South East Asia, including Singapore, that they try really hard to emulate their American and especially California counterparts abut they almost always come up short.  I would say that they come close to 85% successful.  But somehow something always seems to be missing.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Ocean Beach Club food was as good as any in LA.  What I really liked about Ocean Beach Club though its open air, overlooking the ocean ambience.  For the location and all around it was absolutely a great place to hang out with your friends.  I liked the experience so much that we came back a couple days later when I took Yuli and Mah-day out to dinner a couple of days later. 

 

My hotel charge included breakfast buffet for two.  So the first morning in Bali, before we headed out to explore  the island, Mah-day and I had breakfast at my hotel.  The experience was very ordinary.  So I decided I will treat Mah-day to a nicer breakfast experience next day.  So when Mah-day arrived the next morning ready for breakfast I told him we are going to the Four Seasons for breakfast.  As I had expected Mah-day was all excited to try out Four Seasons breakfast.  Four Seasons was about 45 minute drive from Sanur, the location of my hotel.  On the way to Four Seasons I got a text message from Robin that he and Manuel was at the house trying to prepare for Costco some samples and if I was available to talk.  I had bought for 10,000 Rupiah (less than $1.00) a SIM card for my Bali stay.  So I texted back to him with my Bali number and we talked for about 15 minutes to go over what they had to do.  I loved the whole experience.  May be someday I can run Basu’s Homestyle from remote corners of the world with a capable team on the ground in Calabasas, just the way now Omnikron runs. Four Seasons is beautiful resort.  We sat down for breakfast in their bistro-type restaurant, overlooking the Jimboran Bay.  Gorgeous view, great ambience.  Food was good as expected but that was almost secondary.  Price was comparable to what I normally pay for a similar breakfast at the Santa Barbara Four Seasons, may be a just a little less.  Over all it was a great experience.  I also enjoyed watching Mah-day really enjoying the experience.  On the last day of my Bali trip we went for lunch at the Bali Hyatt at Sanur.  It is also a very lovely hotel right on the beach.  I had chicken satay, one of the very few things I like in SE Asia.  It is available in most of the parts of SE Asia, it is their version of chicken skewer (Chicken Shik kabab) but I like the marinate they use and I also like the peanut sauce that comes with it.  It is one of the few safe harbors for me with local food around this part of the world. 

Yuli

Mah-day and I met Yuli at her office on the second day of my stay in Bali. She works for a luxury villa rental company.   We went out to get a bite to eat and then we went to see some of the Villas her company represents.  She has been working at Bali since she left Bintan.  Yuli is originally from Jakarta, went to a school catering to the hospitality industry – hotel, restaurant management, food and beverage etc.  Working in Bintan was her first job after internship in a hotel in Singapore.  I find it very interesting that so many of young women in SE Asia – Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand are so well connected to the rest of the world and are so mobile.  During my years of visiting this area I have met many of them.  They tend to be very young – in their early 20’s, well educated, great communication skill and very hip.  Yuli has her Blackberry on her 24/7, her Facebook application running on it and connected to her 200+ friends all over SE Asia and China.  They are socially and professionally equipped be able to plug into the workforce of just about anywhere in the world.  Most of them I have met are either in the hospitality industry or in High Tech.  Neither of these industries have much of a geographic border.  They can take and apply their professional skill anywhere in the world.  Like Tom Friedman says The World is Flat.  The Yuli’s of the world are the human manifestation of the flat world.  As I have traveled and vacationed in SE Asia for the past 10+ years, meeting young people such as Cedric, Lisa and their friends, Yuli, Mah-day and many others have been a great pleasure.  For me it is these human connections I have been able to make is what I enjoy so much about my travel and vacationing through the whole region.  Yuli has been working in Bali for the past three years since she left Bintan.  She manages all the relationships with all the agencies that book the villas through her company.  She getting married this coming February.  She met her fiancé in Bintan.  He now works at the Hard Rock Hotel in Phuket, Thailand.  For the time being they are going to stay put in their respective jobs and may be some time down the road they would be able to work in the same hotel or same city.  As you can see these are very mobile, and cosmopolitan bunch.  I asked her where is she going for their honeymoon, she said she will get just two weeks time off and she will have to organize all her wedding logistics in Jakarta, get married and come right back.  No time for honeymoon.  Honeymoon will have to wait.

 

After lunch we went looking at some of the luxury villas Yuli’s company,  BHM Villas, http://www.bhmvillas , represents.  We saw three homes they were really beautiful, one of a kind, individually architected and custom built homes.  They were all owned by either Europeans or Australians.  They are all beautiful homes, they come with varying number of staff could be as many as five staff – cook, gardener, security guard etc.  They are pretty pricey as well varying from $550/night for smaller ones (3 bedroom) to $950/night (5 bedroom+) for bigger villas.  The villas are gorgeous.  However I was not crazy about their locations.  Typically these villas have been constructed on what used to be rice fields.  Farmers have been selling their land to developers.  The Villas are not cheap, a five bedroom villa will set you back about $1.5 million.  Once you are inside the villas they have high walls and you are in a very beautiful space but there is no view to look at.  From the upstairs of the home you are going to see rice fields and other homes.  I did not see any villa overlooking the beach or the ocean.  I think those are mostly taken by resorts.  Net net, I will go back to Bintan villas any day over the Bali villas. 

 

Some things in Bali are very inexpensive, some other things are priced like any first world country.  The labor here is very cheap.  A front desk clerk in a hotel makes about $300/month.  Hotel rooms however are pretty reasonable: for Hyatt rack rate around $140/night Grand Hyatt around $220/night.  Although Four Seasons was very pricey at $850/night.

 

I was somewhat disappointed with what I saw in terms of Villas.  Not a great value in my opinion.  What is surprising though, the market seems very strong in terms of occupancy.  I met an Australian guy in one of the newer golf clubs we visited.  He is involved with timeshare condos overlooking the golf course.  Again there was no great ocean view or anything and he told me that their occupancy rate runs between 80% and 100%.  I was very surprised.  I guess it is all about supply and demand.

 

I took Mah-day and Yuli to dinner to the Ocean Beach Club restaurant in Kuta.  It was again a great experience.

Wood Carving

The first time I saw Balinese wood carving is when I went to visit Barbara’s parents in New Hampshire, in 1972.  Barbara’s father had visited Bali in 1976 time frame when no one had known much about Bali and discovered exquisite wood carving of Bali.  Ever since I saw for the first time I saw those wood carvings, I fell in love with those beautiful wood carving from Bali.  I have not seen any wood carving from any other part of the world so intricate and so beautiful.  About 20 years back we did find a couple of pieces of Balinese wood carving in Singapore.  So now that I am in Bali I had decided I am going to have my own collection of Balinese wood carving.  Mah-day took me to this area of Bali called Ubud.  Those of you who read Liz Gilbert’s book Eat, pray, love, this where she had stayed.  Ubud is the wood carving center of Bali.  There are craftsmen all around Ubud who ply their craft and there are a number of reputable galleries where you can find hundreds of varieties of pieces of wood carving in varying sizes, shapes, themes and of course prices. Most of the wood carving is from two types of wood – Mahogany and Ebony.  Mahogany pieces are cheaper than the Ebony pieces.  They told me that Ebony comes from Tim or and there is ban of cutting down of Ebony trees and also export of Ebony wood has been cut back.  As a result Ebony pieces are lot more expensive.  Ebony is an extremely hard and almost black looking wood.  Because of its hardness the carvers can carve really intricate patters and designs.  They also take fantastic polish.  I bought pieces in both kinds of wood.  One thing is for sure prices have gone up a lot since Barbara’s dad visited Bali in 1967.  The world has discovered Balinese wood carving and the prices reflect that.  I went to two major galleries looked around bargained and ended up buying between two galleries 15 pieces of varying shapes, themes and sizes.  One of the worries is how do you make sure that I am not getting fleeced.  Mah-day was not of much help since this is the first time he has been to these galleries.  As a matter of fact I knew a lot more about the Balinese woodcarving than Mah-day.  After much negotiation we settled on a flat 50% discount on all the list prices.  I have no idea how well I did.  I am happy with the pieces I bought and looking forward to using them to fill up many of the display surface all around my home.  They told me once shipped it would take about two weeks to arrive.  Two weeks have past and I am expecting my wood carving pieces to arrive anytime now.